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The state's regional Education Service Centers will no longer issue lesson plans — and forbid their use after Aug. 31 — for a popular online curriculum system that became a lightning rod for conservatives who criticized it as anti-American, legislators announced Monday.

The move left several San Antonio area districts scrambling to replace CSCOPE, as the program is called, before the start of next school year. Districts that lack the staff or budget to design their own curriculum tend to rely on it.

The CSCOPE plans are in use at 877 districts, or 78 percent of all school districts in Texas, said Kyle Wargo, the executive director of Regional Service Center 17 in Lubbock.

“Since we are a small district, we don't have the resources to hire specialized people in that area,” said Somerset Independent School District Superintendent Saul Hinojosa, who credits CSCOPE with helping the district raise its test scores.

Somerset spent roughly $27,000 for CSCOPE lessons last year and had received no complaints about them, Hinojosa said, questioning how the state could prohibit its use.

“We actually purchased the curriculum, so does the curriculum belong to the school district or does it belong to the state?” he asked.

On Friday, the CSCOPE governing board is expected to unanimously vote to end the lesson plan component of the program under an agreement that was brokered in 72 hours, said Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, chairman of the Senate education committee.

Patrick said he saw no reason to object to the request. He and other lawmakers said they got complaints from parents about CSCOPE, including a lesson on the Boston Tea Party that invited students to include the perspective of Britons who might have considered it an “act of terrorism,” and other allegations that CSCOPE promotes Islam over Christianity.

At least five Bexar County school districts rely on CSCOPE to some degree, including Lackland ISD, which serves the children of U.S. military personnel. Its superintendent, Burnie Roper, called the claims of anti-Americanism “ridiculous.”

“I hate the way that it came about because I think, in the end, it makes it difficult for the small districts,” he said.

Ronald Beard, executive director of ESC Region 20, which includes San Antonio, said those who developed the CSCOPE curriculum were accused of “doing a lot of wicked things that are absolutely untrue.”

Beard said the most important aspects of CSCOPE will remain intact, namely “alignment documents” that can help districts and teachers determine when to teach various topics, reducing the amount of work students either miss or repeat when moving from one school or district to another.